and if you do, i think the american economy, i would be probably more optimistic about the american economy right now than certainly any part of the rest of the western world. so if you can get this sorted out, you can really move forward, and therefore, i think now that your elections are out of the way, i'm just speaking as an outsider, now your election is out of the way, there's going to be all this bargaining and positions, but my expectations, i hope, and the desire of the world, is sorted out, and we can move on, and then sort our own problems out. >> for those of us in the united states, we see sort of what seems to be two intractable issues. republicans saying we will not raise taxes on the top 2% of earners. the democrats say we're certainly not going to have cuts that hurt spending cuts that hurt the middle class. and as the proposals go on the table they seem intractable on it. >> they do. but you would expect them, the republicans to be more on the tax side and democrats to be more on the we're not cutting spending side. this is pretty routine type of argument. the question is,